Margaret Haefner

Professor of Communication Arts

Director, Women’s and Gender Studies Minor

At North Park since: 2000

As a graduate student in advertising, Professor Margaret Haefner's interests expanded to the media's effects on children. She decided to teach the subject instead of working in advertising, and went on to pursue a doctorate in communication. She brings her studies of different types of media effects, media ethics, and popular culture to her classrooms at North Park. She has also developed the University's women’s and gender studies minor.

“North Park has allowed me to explore both disciplines and to find the ways in which they overlap,” says Professor Haefner, whose research also blends the two disciplines with a focus on gender and race in romance novels. “I think students in both programs are enriched by the cross-discipline focus of the courses.”

Discussions in her media studies classes range from topics of faith to the implications of social media and its impact on personal relationships to multicultural issues, including the prevalence of race and gender bias in the media. “By the time my students leave, they understand why the media is biased, why that’s a problem, and what they need to do to change that,” she says.